Job Description

General Information

Salary

The national salary range is £42,914 - £46,182 London salary range is £49,325- £53,081 Your salary will be dependent on your base location

Working Pattern

Full Time

Vacancy Approach

External

Location

National

Region

National

Closing Date

13-Nov-2026

Post Type

Permanent

Civil Service Grade

SEO

Number of jobs available

15

Reserve List

12 Months

Job ID

23708

Descriptions & requirements

Job description

Job Title Commercial Manager

Job Grade SEO

Job Location National

Contract Type Permanent

Business Area Ministry of Justice Commercial

Working pattern Full-time

Number of Posts 15

Commercial

The Ministry of Justice has one of the largest and most complex spending profiles in central government. Each year we spend more than £5 billion with our suppliers and it’s our job to help coordinate the sourcing of what we need. We support the management of our contracts across the department, its agencies and non departmental public bodies.

Commercial is responsible for coordinating procurement and contract management across the MoJ, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Commercial is organised into category teams, each with an interesting portfolio of contracts and diverse customers and suppliers to manage. We also have systems, programme management office, supplier relationship and risk management teams who work across all areas.

Role Summary

In this role you will contribute to delivering commercial excellence for the department, providing a customer-focused service, understanding the business need and stakeholder drivers, with the aim of becoming a trusted commercial advisor. You will also develop relationships with the department’s key and strategic suppliers, driving ‘value for money’ and risk management excellence across the category. You will lead and own elements of the overall commercial lifecycle, including strategy and policy development, understanding needs and sourcing options, contract and supplier management and the procurement process itself.

You will work both independently and part of a larger team by drawing on your commercial experience to drive performance and manage setbacks. You will be able to prioritise and manage your own workload to deliver to deadlines, mitigate and escalate any emerging risks and to respond swiftly to changing operational demands.

This role is designed to be flexible and may support a broad range of commercial activity across the organisation. The postholder will contribute to contract management, procurement and wider commercial delivery in line with business priorities.

This role requires flexibility, and you may work across different pieces of work over time to meet changing business needs and priorities.

Why Join Us?

• Be part of a team that helps deliver important services for the justice system
• Work on interesting projects and help make a difference
• Get support and training to develop your skills

Key Responsibilities

These roles are varied, and individual remit is subject to both size of category, and/or all levels of complexity, value and risk. Typically, key responsibilities for a commercial professional in this role may include (but are not limited to):

Strategic delivery and management within a category:

• Understanding the department’s commercial strategy and feeding into the planning process based on commercial approaches that deliver requirements in line with business needs, category strategies and market trends
• Feeding into the development of category strategies and delivery of sourcing requirement within commercial, as part of the team supporting business as usual and project activities
• Understanding demand by forecasting and planning requirements with internal stakeholders and suppliers
• Developing and maintaining category plans for key spend areas

Understanding relevant sourcing options and analysis, delivering positive outcomes through the procurement process:

• Leading on end-to-end strategic sourcing activities for the department and serving as a subject matter expert
• Working with key stakeholders to develop a clear and agreed view of business requirements, and supporting business units in articulating their commercial requirements
• Advising and providing professional guidance throughout the sourcing process, considering and evaluating a range of sourcing models
• Leading development of commercial input into business cases, demonstrating a project's benefits, ‘value for money’ and risk
• Influencing and shaping future procurement policy and standards across the department
• Identifying opportunities to develop collaborative partnerships with suppliers
• Providing a procurement service to the department which delivers demonstrable ‘value for money’ and compliant goods and services contracts as part of a team of procurement professionals on larger procurement activities, including driving productivity opportunities with existing supply base to deliver further savings
• Negotiating with third parties where necessary, using knowledge and experience relating to commercial negotiation techniques
• Understanding and being accountable for sourcing compliance and frameworks

Ensuring effective Commercial Contract and Supplier Management within the category:

• Evaluating the performance of suppliers against the specification and reporting regularly
• Actively contributing to the management of the supply chain portfolio, including the development and implementation of supply chain and supplier relationship strategies
• Acting as commercial lead, managing one or more complex contracts, ensuring effective stakeholder management, governance, performance management frameworks, escalation, risk management, issues resolution, financial management, change control and compliance
• Developing and maintaining positive commercial relationships with the supply chain to maintain and enhance performance, improve service delivery and create additional value
• On an ongoing basis, tracking operation demand and patterns, introducing demand management mechanisms where applicable
• Analysing and assessing supplier risk, understanding impact on contingency and business continuity, driving ‘value for money’ whilst protecting the department’s risk position
• Tracking and owning risks relating to specific contracts, taking steps to mitigate commercial risks

Building and maintaining key relationships across the department and with important external stakeholders:

• Developing effective working relationships with supplier organisations to establish appropriate governance and relationship arrangements, ensuring the effective management of clarifications and change requests
• Provision of commercial advice to stakeholders on all aspects of commercial
• Engaging, where required, with the relevant senior business lead, ensuring that business requirements are supported by category strategies

Enabling and developing the department:

• Championing procurement best practice and working collaboratively with others to create a proactive and intelligent function
• Contributing to the maintenance and updating of systems throughout the procurement lifecycle
• Managing catalogues and commercial content, and maybe responsible for owning key aspects of this
• Working with key stakeholders to promote the use of catalogues
• Playing a role in building capability of new starters and those on development programmes

In addition:

• Mentoring and providing guidance to junior members of the team
• Working within a secure environment on sensitive projects as required
• Some of the roles may involve line management

As part of your own personal career development in the Commercial team, there could be opportunities to move roles at the same grade. In some circumstances, we may need to move you on to business-critical priorities at the same grade to meet business need.

Essential Criteria

Commercial Focus: Has good experience within a procurement, commercial or buying role. Has a good understanding of the principles of end-to-end commercial lifecycle management, and sourcing and procurement methodologies. Evidence of leading and securing ‘value for money’ in a commercial environment. Has strong commercial knowledge, understands commercial law and can use key commercial tools appropriately

Risk and Assurance Management: Demonstrates the ability to manage cyber, personnel and physical risks within an area of responsibility

Commercial Ethics: Demonstrates the ability to apply standards to eliminate corruption, fraud and unethical behaviour in supply chains, taking appropriate actions in the event of any alleged breach of standards

Team Focus: Demonstrates the ability to work as part of a team to support their performance, manage setbacks and resolve issues internally

Build Relationships: Demonstrates the ability to communicate with stakeholders at all levels using different communication styles to articulate the benefits that have been achieved and to establish governance and relationship arrangements

Desirable Criteria

• Working knowledge of systems, e.g. Oracle and/or Jaggaer (Bravo)
• Awareness and understanding of public sector commercial principles and legislation
• Awareness of public sector commercial legislation
• Candidates must have one of the following or a willingness to work towards gaining the appropriate qualification in commercial management profession - CIPS, World CC or similar

Application Stage

An initial sift will be performed against the following elements and will be assessed against the Civil Service success profiles framework:

Experience

• CV
• 2 Experience questions (500 words each)
• Describe a procurement, contract management and/or a wider activity you personally led or influenced. What commercial risks did you manage, how did you achieve value for money, and what evidence demonstrates the outcome?
• Detail a time you delivered a positive, commercial or an activity/project outcome in a complex or fast-paced environment. Explain how you managed stakeholders, balanced competing priorities, and what was achieved as a result.

Behaviour

• Making Effective Decisions - Describe a time you have made or recommended a significant commercial/project decision where multiple senior stakeholders held differing views. Describe how you assessed the available information and evidence, and how you considered risks and opportunities to reach your decision, as well as the outcome and impact of your actions.

If shortlisted, you will be invited to an interview and will be assessed on the selected success profile elements at the interview stage.

Interview stage

There is one interview stage for this vacancy which will be held remotely and as part of the interview process you will be required to provide evidence on the following, and will be assessed against the Civil Service success profiles framework:

Experience

1 question on your experience which will be around the job description/essential criteria

Behaviours

• Making Effective Decisions
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing

Strengths maybe assessed at the interview, and these are not shared in advance.

To learn more about the Civil Service success profiles framework and how they are assessed please click here.

Commercial Roles

New entrants are expected to join on the pay minimum. Higher starting salary and / or Recruitment & Retention Allowance may be available for successful candidates with exceptional skills and experience.

We will consider applications from non-qualified candidates, who are willing to develop and work towards a recognised qualification in order to meet the full requirements of the role.

The specialist allowance may apply to fully qualified applicants with a commercial professional qualification, for example CIPS, World CC, etc.

Further details can be provided during the recruitment process

Additional Information

Working Arrangements & Further Information

The MoJ offers Hybrid Working arrangements where business need allows. This is an informal, non-contractual form of flexible working that blends working from your base location, different MoJ sites and / or from home (please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas). All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity.

Some roles will not be suitable for Hybrid Working. Similarly, Hybrid Working will not suit everyone’s circumstances. Arrangements will be discussed and agreed with the successful candidate(s) and subject to regular review.

For nationally advertised role: all successful candidates will be appointed to the nearest viable office nearest to their home postcode and on its respective pay scale. This will be at either a HQ building (subject to desk allocation, a Justice Collaboration Centre (JCC) or a Justice Satellite Office (JSO) – See Map. All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity).

For current MoJ employees, your base location will need to be changed to the nearest viable office (to your home postcode), either at a HQ building, JCC or JSO within the National Office Network and moved its location’s respective pay scale (any legacy arrangements/locations will need to be amended).

Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform. The changes will apply to staff joining MoJ who are new to the Civil Service. Staff joining MoJ from other civil service employers will transfer onto the new MoJ terms if they are already on 'modernised' terms in their current post or onto 'unmodernised' MoJ terms if they are on 'unmodernised' terms at their current post. Details will be available if an offer is made.

MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain their grade on lateral transfer.

All candidates who are currently in receipt of Mark Time / Pay Protection should ensure they are familiar with the new policy on permanent and temporary promotion which can be found on the employee intranet.

Flexible working hours

The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week. MoJ welcomes part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and business needs. All applications for part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns will be considered in accordance with the MoJ’s Flexible Working policy.

Benefits

The MoJ offers a range of benefits:

Annual Leave

Annual leave is 25 days on appointment and will increase to 30 days after five years’ service.

There is also a scheme to allow qualifying staff to buy or sell up to three days leave each year. Additional paid time off for public holidays and 1 privilege day. Leave for part-time and job share posts will be calculated on a pro-rata basis.

Pension

The Civil Service offers a choice of pension schemes, giving you the flexibility to choose the pension that suits you best.

Training

The Ministry of Justice is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities.

Networks

The opportunity to join employee-run networks that have been established to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be expressed direct to senior management. There are currently networks for employees of minority ethnic origin, employees with disabilities, employees with caring responsibilities, women employees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

Support

• A range of ‘Family Friendly’ policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
• Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits, retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
• For moves to or from another employer or moves across the Civil Service this can have implications on your eligibility to carry on claiming childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for alternative government childcare support schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. More information can be found on www.GOV.UK or Childcare Choices. You can determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
• Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
• Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. Should you feel that the recruitment process has breached the recruitment principles you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order

• To Transformative Business Services (0345 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk);
• To Ministry of Justice Resourcing team (resourcing-management-office@justice.gov.uk);
• To the Civil Service Commission (details available here)

As a Disability Confident employer, MoJ are committed to providing everyone with the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities, by making adjustments throughout all elements of the recruitment process and in the workplace. MoJ are able to offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns.

For more information on applying for a role as a candidate with a disability or long-term condition, please watch our animated videos.

You will be able to request reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process within the application form. If you need additional help completing the application form, please contact the TBS Recruitment Enquiries Team.

Diversity & Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

A Great Place to Work for Veterans

The "Making the Civil Service a Great Place to work for veterans" initiative includes a guaranteed interview scheme to those who meet the minimum criteria to provide eligible former members of the Armed Forces with opportunities to secure rewarding jobs. Allowing veterans to continue to serve their country, and to bring highly skilled individuals with a broad range of experience into the Civil Service in an environment, which recognises and values your previous service in the Armed Forces.

For further details about the initiative and eligibility requirements visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans

Redeployment Interview Scheme

Civil Service departments are expected to explore redeployment opportunities before making an individual redundant. The MoJ is committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.

MoJ is able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidates will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.

Civil Service Nationality Rules

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Reserve list

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles.

Contact Information

MoJ:

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Please quote the job reference 23708

HMPPS

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Please quote the job reference 23708

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Application form stage assessments

Behaviours

Behaviours Application Form Question Word Limit

250

Making Effective Decisions

Experience

We will assess your experience for this role via the following methods

CV or Work History, Experience Questions

Experience Questions Application Form Question Word Limit

500

Evidence of Experience

CV or Work History, Experience Questions

Interview stage assessments

Interview Dates

To Be Confirmed - Expected early December

Behaviours

Making Effective Decisions

Delivering at Pace

Working Together

Communicating and Influencing

Experience

Your Experience for this role will be assessed at interview. To learn more about Experience and how they are assessed please click here.

We will assess your experience for this role via the following methods

Experience Questions

Strengths

Strengths will be assessed but these are not shared in advance. To learn more about Strengths and how they are assessed please click here.

Level of security checks required

Baseline Personnal Security Standard (BPSS)

Use of Artificial Intelligence (Al)

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.